It's very easy to point the finger and accuse people of being something they’re not.
Just the other day we got called tight-fisted for refusing to pay an old lady’s bus fare late at night. Yes it was raining but, Jesus, she wouldn't share her umbrella. What goes around comes around you see.
For years we've often assumed that people who listen to pop music are morons who live in a fantasy land. Of course everything will work out happily ever after like in all their videos and song. Now, scientists have banged their brains together to prove what we all knew all along.
Before you race down to the comments box and vent your misspelt anger at us, cast your mind back a few weeks. Rihanna and Chris Brown have hardly been away from the media spotlight thanks to Chris Brown allegedly using Rihanna as a personal punchbag. Instead of shunning him for being a bellend, Rihanna went crawling back to him. Presumably in a bloody mess.
If you're a Madonna fan then you\’ll get the thrills and literal trauma of watching a pensioner thrusting herself around on stage like she's still young and current. Britney Spears fans are in for a rollercoaster ride nearly every time she performs on stage. If it's not mental fanny flashing or head shaving, She'll either break down in tears for your amusement.
For once this isn't our thoughts getting in the way of facts. A PhD student called Virgil Griffiths – who is smarter than us in every way – claims there's a correspondence between low IQs and a liking for pop and R&B, with Beyonce fans doing particularly badly on tests.
How he worked this out, we’re not sure. Most of the time, a fan of Beyonce has an age range of pre-birth to around twelve. Contrast that with a supposedly more intelligent band like Radiohead, then it kinds of complicates things. Radiohead fans can be aged anywhere from 16 to 60. In a test between a kid and an adult, we can always guess the winner. Especially if tasks involve rewiring a plug.
But before all you Beyonce fans put a ring on it and start complaining, there is some good news. You lot aren't the stupidest of them all! According to the researcher, it spells bad news for rap lovers:
?Fans of rapper Lil Wayne are supposedly the dimmest of them all?.
We know fans of Lil Wayne won't leave us any abusive remarks. They will have shot their computers up in anger.
You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!
Shooty* says
Heh. Awesome. Give the guy his doctorate. One of my neighbours, aged 21, is a fifty cent and N-Dubz fan. He doesn’t own any shoes with laces, and now I know why.
toolahroolahroolah says
Does the study break out whether people who are dim to begin are attracted to this music?
Or does this music turn otherwise normally intelligent people into dullards?
I only ask because whenever I hear a snippet of most pop music, I swear I can feel my brain cells expiring.
JoeMomma says
I smell a Nobel prize here. I wonder where MJ fans end up on this scale. We know they can use the computer, and their communication skills are a bit better the CB&R. Maybe that pre-pubecent stage of 10-12? That sounds about right.
toolahroolahroolah says
<>
That is precious, my friend!
Joke Police says
Yeah, people who like pop music should be banned.
magnetite says
If any modern R&B song with a male artist passes the ‘ma bitches’ test, then I’ve yet to hear it.
Ignore whatever lyrics the performer is trying to sing and simply sing your own words thusly:-
‘ma bitches, ma bitches, ma bit-ches’ over and over until the end of the song.
Congratulations, you have both summed up the driving sentiment of the song AND saved yourself from having to listen to the lyrics at the same time.
(When did it stop being ‘ma laydee’ anyway. I must have missed a meeting)
Bobby James says
I knew this all along. How? Everyone I know who listens mostly to top 40 BS is stupid.
Jay says
I don’t think that’s true.Reasons being that it seems as though that this statement is not of completely reliable research(I checked the site).It is a generalisation.I love pop and rnb, but I do fine at school because it is lively and entertaining and its not boring like classical music(do people honestly expect youth to listen to this? It puts me to sleep!).I think that people should not take such large influences from these songs.This statement shouldn’t have been made as it shames people like me.
Joke Police says
It’s a pop snob frenzy.
Apparently all R&B is sexist now.
Credible and non-credible music are not mutually exclusive, you know.
Kayla says
This is stupid! How can you tell how intelligent someone is by the music they listen to? My dance teacher’s husband is an architect and he listens to rap, but doesn’t going to school and learning the tricks of architecture prove that he’s intelligent to some extent?! I have millions of other examples that prove this bull is flawed and nothing but a bored, dumb scientist’s hypothesis!
shooty* says
Jay, being serious for a minute, you post is clearly fairly well written, temperate and considered. However, you fuck it up royally with the last sentence: “This statement shouldn
Julian Mentat says
Intelligence is a nebulous concept and IQ tests are subjective. I’m glad that we can now replace them by the “R&B test” wherein we score people by the number of R&B songs they own.
chloe says
Get a life. this is kinda racist thinking. Did you have nothing better to do to hate on people? Why cant you just accept people for who they are and what they like. People like different things its plain and simple and some people like me like every kind of music. I think who ever did the study and wrote this are the morons because they are too limited and have to much anger and hate and bitterness to just be content as is. But have to complain and say stupid stuff to make them selfs feel better. I promise if you just take like easier and dont let things bother you and just accept all people for who they are and mind your own buisness you will be a happier person on the inside and out. goodluck
magnetite says
Hey, don’t look at me. I think everything after Baroque was shite. There are just different levels of it, and differing intent within it.
Julian Mentat says
>> “I think who ever did the study and wrote this
>> are the morons because they are too limited and
>> have to much anger and hate and bitterness”
So what? That doesn’t make it untrue.
Shooty* says
HATE CRIME!
Gilbert Wham says
Baroque? Well, I liked their early stuff…
magnetite says
Before it got too comercial, Gilbert?
If everyone is prepared to stand up for their musical tastes why don’t they simply cut-and-paste (or laboriously hand copy them if their PC-Fu is not mighty) their ten most played tracks on whatever music player exists on their machine?
Mine expose me as a big girly girl. I do not mind this at all.
1. Camera Obscura – Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken
2. Mark Lanegan – Hit The City
3. Cocteau Twins – Bluebell Knoll
4. Primal Scream – Come Together
5. Cocteau Twins – Cherry Coloured Funk
6. The Cocteau Twins – Fluffy Tufts
7. Andrew Bird – Scythian Empires
8. stellastarr* – My Coco
9. Kate Nash – Foundations
10. Cocteau Twins – Lorelei
toolahroolahroolah says
bill monroe, bill evans, gil evans, yoyoma, glen velez, coltrane, ray charles, newgrass revival, carter family, miles, bela fleck.
I’m an old fart.
Joke Police says
kate nash lol
magnetite says
I likes me some pianner, JP. Besides, I could have lied and bumped Aretha Franklin’s It Hurts Like Hell up from 11 to 9 – but that wouldn’t be an honest representation of the ‘most played’ on my cotty now, would it?. I did say I was a big gurly gurl.
And just ‘lol’? You seem to have lost your touch, my man.
Joke Police says
You must eat so many lemons.
I’ll do my 10 later. I like this game.
Joke Police says
1. Dashboard – Modest Mouse
2. The Mistress Witch From Mcclure – Sufjan Stevens
3. M79 – Vampire Weekend
4. Ragged Wood – Fleet Foxes
5. The Underdog – Spoon
6. The French Open – Foals
7. No Man’s Land – Sufjan Stevens
8. About Your Dress – The Maccabees
9. Fake Empire – The National
10. Bandits – Midlake
euclid says
Shit. Didn’t have Play Count activated.
Can we do this again next month?
Here’s my guess: Noodles (jp), Automatic Bean,
Animal Collective, The Johns, Fratellis,
TV on the Radio and the Whisper Midgets.
magnetite says
I cannot fault your musical tastes there, JP. However, with no R&B in that top ten, it begs the question – why so defensive of it?
I’ve had a few lemons in the past. Here’s a piece of advice. If life hands you a lemon – try to convince her the she’s really bi and have a crack anyway.
Well, that was Winamp and the modern done.
Next time maybe I’ll deliver my Deliplayer most played chiptunes from C64 and Amiga demos and games. Going old-school on your asses.
Also Songbird, and the baroque and classical most played. Going even-older-school.
Joke Police says
I think for a new game, we should do ‘Name The 10 Proper Pop Songs on Your iPod That You Actually Like And Listen To And Don’t Care If Other People Hate Them’. Maybe the title’s a bit long, but the concept’s got potential.
Go!
1. Aaliyah – If Your Girl Only Knew
2. Alphabeat – Fascination
3. t.A.T.u – All The Things She Said
4. Christina Aguilera – Ain’t No Other Man
5. Daniel Bedingfield – If You’re Not The One
6. Wiley – Wearing My Rolex
7. Faith Evans – Love Like This
8. Groove Armada – Song For Mutya
9. Natalie Imbruglia – Wrong Impression
10. Michael Jackson – Rock With You
PS This thread is either revolutionising Hecklerspray or a big pile of self-indulgence. You decide.
magnetite says
I’ll go for self-indulgence, JP – as I’m tremendously keen on that myself.
Though I don’t have an iPod – i bought my loinfruit one each as they like the shiny-shiny. I have an Aldi/Medion cheapo mp3 player for mine own use)
Here’s what I didn’t skip when I just played my top 200 most played playlist.
Jane’s Addiction – Just Because
Rolling Stones – You Can’t Always Get What You Want
The Jam – That’s Entertainment
Jamelia – There’s Something About You
Massive Attack – Teardrop (Elizabeth Fraser again)
Parliament/Funkadelic – Maggot Brain
Ed Harcourt – All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed
JJ72 – Formulae
Dubstar – Not So Manic Now
Florence and the Machine – Dog Days Are Over
The Bee Gees – To Love Somebody
Sugababes – Overload
Rolling Stones – Sympathy For The Devil
& a lot more. I am both too drunk on free dead man’s booze and too lazy to list them all.
Though currently playing is: All Saints – Pure Shores.
I’m probably less of a gurly gurl than I am a biatch.
:)
Thanks for being you, JP – I wouldn’t have you any other way.
magnetite says
It’s great, this – it’s like Facebook, but with more piss-taking and less sociability.
Matthew Laidlow says
If it was like Facebook magnetite, there would be a random quiz shoved in here telling you when you’d die or what kind of tree you are.
euclid says
I quite like the Good, the Bad and the Queen which makes me a larch, I believe.